


living room, ny

by cartographies



Series: personally canonical post-s4 post-quentin's-resurrection universe [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Smoking, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22805353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartographies/pseuds/cartographies
Summary: the landscapeafter cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which isa tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold metight, it's getting cold.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: personally canonical post-s4 post-quentin's-resurrection universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864921
Comments: 59
Kudos: 144





	1. living room.

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter requires a serious content warning for explicit discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation. I'm posting it as a completed work because it stands alone but will add chapters as they come.

Eliot goes to therapy now. It fucking sucks ass.

He goes back every week. 

There’s just—there’s just _so much_ shit. Where to even fucking begin? There had been a moment, in his happy place, where it had seemed like his life was a thing he could make sense of, give order to, a pattern discerned, a thread he could follow. Not in the actual wading through his worst memories, fumbling and flailing in the darkest recesses of his brain looking for a light switch that would illuminate a way out of the trap of his own mind, no—that had all been similarly inchoate, confusing, as daunting a morass as the one he contemplated every time he stepped through the door to Crystal’s office. But in that moment, looking at the memory versions of Quentin and himself on those steps, he can remember his heart dropping to his toes as he realized the enormity of what he’d done—in that moment it had all been revealed in cold, clear light, all the many things that he had done and that had been done to him, all the lessons he’d been taught at the hands of his father and his hometown and magic that led inexorably to this moment where he fucked up the best thing his life had ever given him, he can see it laid out with sickening order, fearful precision—and then his heart had risen back up into its rightful place in his chest and began to stir again in the cage of his ribs as he realized what he must do to right it. At that moment, in pressing his lips to Quentin’s in promise, he might have laughed at the idea of sitting on a therapist’s couch and not having a single thing he could think to say. 

That clarity had looked like so much vanity and delusion, when Quentin was dead. Which is the reason Eliot is in therapy. Quentin was dead, and it destroyed him, and now Quentin is alive again by some miracle and Eliot needs Quentin to be okay. Julia needs Quentin to be okay. Quentin had killed himself and coming back to life served to restore him to the suicidal depression that had led him to choose to leave it in the first place and that had to be addressed. Convincing Quentin to go isn’t hard—Eliot and Julia had been careful to not resort to guilt trips to get Quentin there, knowing it would do as much harm as good, and he thinks they’d succeeded, but it’s implicit, the specter of their devastation is in the room with them always, a _you died and it was hell and fought so hard to get you back because we need you and so now we need you to never fucking do that again_ hiding in every _we just want you to get better_ , even for someone not as finely attuned to the many exquisite tortures of self-blame as Quentin. 

Eliot knows this is a factor because the night before Quentin’s first therapy appointment he watches helpless as Quentin grinds his hands into his eyes and says, “I know—I know how worried about me you all are, Jesus, you brought me back from the fucking dead even after I fucking—the way you guys look at me, I fucking—ruined you.”

“That’s why we brought you back from the dead, Quentin.” Eliot’s could hear the strain in his own voice. They’re sitting on the couch in the mostly empty penthouse because life fucking goes on and everybody’s got their shit. He wants to wrap Quentin up in his arms, rock him, kiss his hair. But he knows if he reached out to touch him right now Quentin would lash out like a wounded animal. “Because we couldn’t fucking stand life without you. We don’t want you to feel guilty. That’s not what any of this is about.”

Quentin looks at him, throat working. There’s a cruel gleam in his eyes on top of the depths of misery there that Eliot recognizes, both from being on the receiving end of it and something he knows from the other side, from when it wells up within himself. “The thing is—yeah, when I’m suicidal most of the time my brain is telling me that everyone I know would be better off without me, that they might be sad for a while but in the end they’ll be relieved to be free of me. But other times—I remember one time when I was at Columbia where I just—I don’t remember writing the note, exactly, but I do remember waking up not dead but fucking tremendously hungover and reading the note and in it I told my dad and Julia I knew that it would destroy them and I was so fucking sorry but I had to do it. I knew what I was doing to everyone who loved me and I didn’t fucking care as long as I could stop feeling bad.” 

“Well,” Eliot says, feeling sick, “at least you recognize that we love you. But Jesus, it’s not just _feeling bad_. You were in a lot of pain, Q.”

Quentin snorts like a goddamn child and Eliot feels enraged. But he takes a deep, steadying breath, shoring up his patience, as Quentin bites out, “I was _selfish_. I was the same monumentally selfish prick I always am, that time and—and this time. I knew what it would do to you and I did it anyway.” 

_Baby_ , Eliot wants to say, except that he’s forfeited the right to say it and it’s about number 500 on the action list of things that need attending to right now. 

It’s all wrong, what Quentin is saying. It’s Quentin’s mind cannibalizing whatever it can get at in new and inventive ways in its quest to consume itself. “Q, come on. You went through hell and you have an illness and in a split second decision you—” 

Quentin is shaking his head from Eliot’s first syllable, all his considerable stubbornness utilized to refuse to give an inch on the issue of seeing himself as unworthy. “El, we’ve all been through hell and I’m the only one that ever. Gave up. I’m the only one who can’t take it— “ 

“Bullshit,” Eliot shoots out. “Do you think _I’m_ okay? Do you think I have it together? I’m a goddamn wreck.”

“Yeah, because of me. You were possessed for months and then you got unpossessed exactly long enough for me to die on you.”

Eliot is brought up short, suddenly, in the face of this. In the face of the mountain of shit they’re facing. He could respond any number of ways. _Well, the possession is my fault,_ he could say. He can imagine Quentin’s response: _yeah, because I wanted to exile myself forever,_ lockedin as he is into this particular track of self-loathing but on another day in another argument, like literally last week, _you should have let me stay there, oh God Eliot that thing took you and I thought you were dead,_ because at the moment agony has a terrifying number of doors gaping open in Quentin to waltz through. 

So Eliot chooses to tap into the anger Quentin seems to want from him, because it’s better than the fear (how is he ever going to do this how are they ever going to do this this is why you _need therapy_ _Quentin_ ), so he finds himself practically hissing. “Yeah, you did. And you’re right. It did destroy me. What do you want me to fucking say here? That I forgive you? I don’t. I can’t forgive you for hurting yourself. I can’t fucking forgive you for _dying_. And I brought you back anyway because the world is fucking better with you in it and I love you and there is nothing you could ever do that will change that or would make me do differently. You want me to be mad at you? Fine, I can do that, as long you’re here for me to be mad at.”

Quentin looks at him, startled, eyes wide and wet. “El…” 

Eliot is immediately awash in regret. Fuck, that is not what he should have said. What the fuck is wrong with him? Quentin needs his help, not... _this_. “Quentin, shit, I…”

Then for the first time in the month since Quentin has been back among the living, Eliot hears the glorious sound of Quentin’s honking, dorky laughter, thick with tears and snot, deeply unappealing and the best thing Eliot’s ears have ever heard. He blinks at Quentin, mouth open a little in befuddlement, helpless with not knowing what to say or do.

“Fuck, sorry,” Quentin says, waving his hands in front of his face. “I just—this happens sometimes, I can’t help it—”

Quentin gives another strange barking laugh, and then his face just crumbles. “Eliot—I’m. I’m sorry—”

But Eliot isn’t listening because that laugh seems to have released some of that tense baited energy and as Quentin curls in on himself Eliot reaches over and pulls Quentin into his arms. He goes easily, blubbers out another apology into the crook of Eliot’s neck. 

“ _You’re_ sorry? I’m—fuck Q, I’m sorry for that insane tirade, I didn’t mean it, there’s nothing to fucking forgive—” 

“No, I—Eliot, you don’t have to apologize, I’m—” but before he can get out another _sorry_ the absurdity of it both hits them and they’re laughing, Quentin’s tears soaking Eliot’s collar. Eliot blinks hard against the tears in his own eyes. Smoothes his hand up the trembling plane of Quentin’s back. 

“I’m serious, Q. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. You don’t have to fucking apologize for—for dying. _There’s nothing to forgive_.”

“No, there is. It weirdly made me feel—better. Because I haven’t forgiven myself for it.”

Eliot just shakes his head, vehement and mute, as Quentin pulls back from him a little and wipes at his face with his hands. No, it’s all wrong, he’s fucked it up, but he can’t say anything, not least because he finds himself mesmerized for a moment, as he is so often, by the sight of Quentin, by the sight of Quentin performing the mundane and vile action of wiping his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie. By Quentin alive with a body that cries. Staggered by a tenderness and relief so complete Eliot doesn’t know how he remains upright. 

When Eliot finds his voice all he can say is: “Well, you should forgive yourself.” 

He knows from his own experience that repeating _there’s nothing to forgive_ will make no difference: Julia had said it, Margo had said it, even Alice had said it, and it made no difference. But Eliot has—he’s gotten it wrong, somewhere, or at least he didn’t get it right, of course he forgives Quentin if there was anything to forgive which there isn’t, it isn’t a matter of forgiveness, it’s much more simple than that, Quentin was dead and it was unbearable and it didn’t matter how he got there Eliot just needed him alive again and he _is_ , and anyway Eliot is the one who should be begging for forgiveness, for rejecting Quentin and for leaving Quentin alone until Quentin wanted to take the final step to aloneness in a Castle far from anyone who loved him and for getting possessed and for the thing wearing his skin tormenting Quentin, and god for just right now, he’s fucked up hugely, _I don’t forgive you_ , what the fuck is wrong with him—and yet something in Quentin has ever so slightly eased, there’s the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips.

“Yeah, probably. I’m sure the, the,” Quentin makes a helpless gesture with his hands and gives another odd giggle, “the _therapy_ , will address that, I’m sure that’ll come up. God, I mean, I know she’s a magician but this is still probably going to be _a lo_ t, like she’s probably not prepared for, for, _yeah I killed myself and I was resurrected by my friends and_ …” 

Quentin trails off, daunted in the face of this, but Eliot finds himself smiling a little too, strangely comforted by Quentin’s black humor. “I assume it’ll be an exciting shake-up from the rampant substance abuse.”

Quentin opens his mouth to respond, and it’s adorable, the way you can actually watch his decision to change course play out on his expressive face. He looks down at his hands, where they’ve taken up rubbing restlessly against his legs. But then he looks up, looks Eliot right in the eye. “Eliot I just—I don’t know. It’s fucked but it helped because maybe I don’t forgive myself and maybe I think I’m a selfish piece of shit and not worth even a tiny fraction of everything you and Julia and Alice have done for me but I’m still…”—another watery laugh—“I’m still so fucking glad you brought me back. I’m glad I’m here to be mad at, too.”

Eliot’s heart hurts, he would have thought he sort of plumbed the depths of the ways he could ache for Quentin in the half a year he was dead but no such fucking luck. He thinks of the first night after they brought Quentin back, of Quentin moaning: _what did I do, oh my God, what did I do?_ Of how Quentin had told him how after his attempts there was always a moment of sickening, paralyzing regret, of _oh god what have I done I take it back_ how once he was in the hospital he might long to try again but there was always one moment where the animal organism’s urge to life kicked in and made him screamingly aware of the molecular level wrongness of what what was happening, and Eliot had had to excuse himself to go dry heave in the hallway bathroom. 

“I’m not mad at you,” is the asinine thing that comes out of Eliot’s mouth as he reaches over and stills Quentin’s jittery hand with his own. “I’m sorry. Q, seriously, you can tell me to go fuck myself.”

At that, Quentin smiles at Eliot for some reason: genuine, big. No teeth, but a heartrending glimpse of dimple. He turns his hand around to lace it with Eliot’s, squeezes. They just look at each other for a long moment in the dim light, hands intertwined. Normal stuff. _I love you_ , Eliot thinks. He could even say it. Quentin would say it back. 

Quentin looks away, tucks his still short hair behind his ear with his free hand. “I’m sorry too. Don’t—don’t interrupt, we’ll be going back and forth all night. I just. God, you put your life on hold to _resurrect me_ and now you’re still putting it on hold, hanging around this apartment while I cry and can’t get out of bed and bitch at you for trying make sure you don’t have to resurrect me _again_.”

There’s nowhere else Eliot wants to be, nowhere else in an infinite number of worlds he could be, than here in this apartment on this couch in Manhattan with Quentin Coldwater. “Quentin, you babysat my body for eight months while—Jesus, let me do the same for you.” 

Quentin looks back at him and there’s something playing out on his face, something he’s fighting to figure out how to say and then to resist saying in this moment, that Eliot could lie to himself about and insist he doesn’t understand: what does it mean that you were here in this apartment taking care of me and what does it mean that I’m here in this apartment taking care of you, it means something and even the very best Eliot’s self-protective self-loathing bullshit can’t twist it or diminish the enormity of it, not after his happy place and a look like dawn on Quentin’s face as he said _Eliot_ in the park, a look he’d carried back into the prison of his mind and held onto like it was a talisman that would purchase his way back out, not after Margo told Eliot _Quentin is dead_ and Eliot just knew his life was over, not after Julia voice cracking had said _Eliot he really loved you,_ not after he brought Quentin back. 

Quentin doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t look away. Neither does Eliot. “I just feel so _weak_. Everyone else has been through so much shit but I’m the only one who fucks up to the point of dying.”

“It’s not _weakness_ ,” Eliot insists passionately, although he knows it’s pointless even before he hears Quentin’s frustrated sigh. Eliot thinks of many things he could say. Like, well, _maybe you don’t have the wrong idea_ which is—absurd, of course Quentin does, dying isn’t the right idea, it’s the _catastrophically wrong_ idea _._ But God, he and Julia and everyone just repressing all their shit and just trying to move forward is also the wrong idea. Eliot had repressed himself right into this disaster. 

“And you aren’t the only one who is a fucking mess,” is what Eliot ends up saying. 

“Yeah, but I’m the one throwing a tantrum about going to therapy,” Quentin says. He scrubs one hand through his hair, making it stick up wildly and it takes all of Eliot’s willpower not to smooth it down. Quentin’s other hand is still gripping Eliot’s tightly. “It’s so dumb, it’s so far down on the list of fucked up shit about my brain—but I’ve always felt so alone with this. When other kids were going to prom I was on a locked ward or puking my guts up because we were trying new meds that once again didn’t work and…” 

“You aren’t alone,” Eliot says, and this causes Quentin to remove his hand from Eliot’s, for real anger to spark. Eliot stupidly tries to brazen it out. “Like I said, look at me, I’m not…”

“Yeah, I got it,” Quentin says hotly. “I know you aren’t a paragon of mental health either, Jesus, if anyone knows that it’s—”

Eliot flinches. Quentin sees it and doesn’t soften but does say with a sigh, “Forget it, it’s just me being stupid. High school bullshit, it’s dumb to let it affect me. It’s late, let’s just—”

Eliot doesn’t want to leave it on empty platitudes and telling Quentin he isn’t alone, despite the evidence and despite Eliot’s actions, is exactly that. Eliot thinks of all the things he wants to say. _It’s not weakness. Letting people see all your raw wounds, all your tender places, is the bravest thing I can think of, and you make me so much braver._ Thinks of the things he can’t say to Quentin or anyone right now and maybe ever: _I’m so fucked up. I’m so fucked up it terrifies me. I’ve let it ruin the best things in my life, or really the best thing, which was you. I’m terrified I’ll do it again so I just focus on you and getting you well and not asking for anything more because what if I try to fix this and I still fuck up and—_

Quentin’s face, shuttering. Turning away from Eliot, when just a few moments before he’d been so open, in that uniquely Quentin way. It’s terribly familiar. It brings Eliot back to that moment at Whitespire, Quentin’s tiny voice saying _okay, okay, sorry._ At least he’s angry at Eliot’s bullshit this time, recognizes it, rather than buying it, devastated, but Eliot can’t—

He can’t say all of it, all the impossible things he wants to say to Quentin. But he can—he can try to say one.

“You’re right. I’m a fucking disaster,” Quentin makes a scornful noise in the back of his throat. Eliot losing him further every second.

“And I’m not brave like you,” Eliot says, quiet, and this is shocking enough that Quentin turns back to him, lovely eyes surprised. “I’m not brave enough to—I fully admit I’m fucked up, I wear it proudly. I always have. But it’s bullshit posturing, because I’ve never been brave enough to try to fucking do anything about it. I’m highly fucking doubtful about therapy being capable of fixing anything about—this. Me. That’s why it terrifies me. What if I go, and I’m still left with—me.” 

“Yeah. El, I—believe me, I get that,” Quentin says softly. Then his lips quirk. “This isn’t the most inspiring speech for the night before I start my next orbit on the therapeutic merry-go-round.”

“Fuck inspiring,” Eliot says, lofty and totally earnest. “Maybe it won’t help. But I’m saying what I’ve always said—you aren’t alone. I’ll go with you.”

“Um, Eliot, that’s—sweet, but I don’t know if…”

“No, not literally with you. I mean, I’ll find one of the 72 magical therapists in the tri-state area for my very own.” 

Quentin’s mouth actually drops open in shock. Rude. “Eliot you don’t have to—"

“I really don’t _want_ to. But I think I need to.” Eliot looks away from Quentin’s soft, open gaze. “I’m not doing it for you, okay? I just—you’re right. The last year, the last three years. They’ve done a number on all of us and I...God, don’t give me an out. I’m not giving you one. Don’t give me one.”

This is mostly lies. Of course he’s doing it for Quentin. To be worthy of Quentin, someday. To not fuck this up again. To be somewhat okay so he can help Quentin be okay because if Quentin isn’t okay then Eliot is really, really not okay.

“Okay,” Quentin says. “Cool. I look forward to you joining me on the beautiful journey that is crying in therapy.” He obviously thinks Eliot is totally full of shit. Whatever, Eliot will prove him wrong. Later. 

Eliot scoffs. “ _Please_.” 

The next day when Eliot and Margo go to pick Quentin up from his therapy appointment his face is red and splotchy and he looks at Eliot’s face and laughs, not unkindly. “Don’t—don’t look at me like that, it’s fine. I cry at 3 out of every 4 appointments, and the one where I don’t cry is basically pointless.”

Eliot feels a great sense of foreboding. “So it was...good?”

“Yeah, no, it fucking sucked.” 

But Quentin actually does sound better than he has in essentially the entire time he has inhabited this body and he happily acquiesces to Margo’s insistence they try this Korean place nearby. It’s the longest amount of time he’s been willing to leave the penthouse and he and Margo prattle happily about nonsense over dinner and Eliot feels a great upwelling of hope that maybe they’re really like, _onto something_ with this therapy business. Then the day after that Quentin does not leave his room, and he snaps at everyone when he finally emerges the day after that. This continues for nearly a whole week, until the day before his next therapy appointment it breaks, and he eats the breakfast Eliot makes and laughs at a joke of Julia’s and while Eliot’s arms are submerged nearly up to the elbows in sudsy dishwater he thanks Eliot for the meal and insists again he can do the clean up which is nice of him but every time Quentin loads the dishwasher Eliot has to come behind him and reload it so he might as well and anyway weirdly he enjoys it and Quentin seemingly without thought leans up to kiss Eliot sweetly on the cheek and after Eliot is done and the dishwasher is humming softly and Quentin is sitting on the balcony with a book taking in the sunlight like a cat, Eliot, pit in his stomach about what the fuck he’s signed up for, gets his laptop and starts looking through the list of magical therapists in New York City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am on tumblr [here](https://honeybabydichotomy.tumblr.com/).


	2. balcony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for references to homophobia and Eliot's abusive childhood, as well as the use of a homophobic slur.

Eliot finds Quentin on the balcony, smoking. Hoodie, jeans, bare feet. It’s autumn, but the planet’s cooking, so Eliot can resist the desire to go get socks and force Quentin’s feet into them, can push down this absurd sense of protective tenderness at the sight of Quentin’s hairy toes, and sit down beside him at the little table and take the cigarette Quentin offers him. Lean in to let Quentin light it.

Quentin smoking is new, at least to Eliot. He’d never done it much at Brakebills. Eliot had brought this up and Quentin had said _yeah, it’s mostly when I’m hanging out with Julia a lot or, or when I’m really stressed out._ Quentin had made jokes about feeling free to foul up his pristine new lungs, and seeing the face Eliot had made at this—oh god, in this lifetime, is he going to have to worry about _lung cancer_?—Q first said _wait, are you serious right now?_ in outrage at Eliot’s blatant hypocrisy. Which, fair. But then with a sigh he’d gone on: _yeah yeah, I know, it’s terrible for you, but it, it helps with uh, anxiety, and sometimes with me it’s just, sometimes something terrible for me helps me stave off something worse, so—_ and Eliot had just cut Quentin off by plucking the unlit cigarette dangling from Quentin’s lower lip, lighting it with a dramatic tut, and taking a deep drag while not breaking eye contact, which was probably pretty weird. But Quentin laughed, so. Told Eliot that Julia was responsible for his first cigarette. Apparently Julia has been smoking since the ninth grade, and she and Quentin had lit up in the bathroom at her grandmother’s home on Thanksgiving and Quentin had coughed so hard he’d thrown up. Eliot had already heard this story months ago, told as Julia cried and also her version had included the fact Quentin hadn’t made it to the toilet but thrown up in the bathtub, and Julia in her rush to hold his hair back hastily put her cigarette down on the lip of the tub and it had set the shower curtain on fire. Anyway, now they’re working on their smoker’s coughs together, and unfortunately Quentin smoking is as devastatingly attractive to Eliot as everything else about him, but one thing at a time.

They smoke in peaceful silence for a minute before Quentin says: 

“So, how was it?” At Eliot’s dramatic sigh, Quentin laughs and says, “Yeah, I know. The last thing you want to do is talk _more_ , just—was it alright?”

 _It_ is therapy. Eliot had his first appointment this morning. Quentin sounds concerned. Eliot sighs again: less for distracting effect this time, more genuine. “It—what was your exact phrasing? Right. It fucking sucked.” 

Quentin laughs again, and so does Eliot. He doesn’t feel up to looking directly at Quentin and hasn’t since they started talking, but he can’t help but try to snatch a glance at him, the fact that Quentin is there to look at exerting its gravitational pull, only to find his glance caught and pinned by Quentin’s own gaze, the way he’s been looking at Eliot all this time. Eliot swallows hard. 

“It was fine? I liked her, I think? I’ll go back, it’s just…”

Eliot has come out here to Quentin with a purpose. A terrifying purpose. Because he’d gone into therapy today, and, well. 

_“Why are you here, Eliot?”_

_Okay, look. Eliot had determined to go into this with genuine openness. They’d got through the pleasantries successfully. Crystal, his therapist, seems...nice. He was committed, and if he was going to put himself through this he was going to do his best to get something from it. But,_ come on _. Really?_

 _“_ Really _? I mean,_ honestly _, is that seriously what you start with? Does that work? Do you ever actually get anything that isn’t complete bullshit?”_

 _Crystal actually smiles a little bit, which throws Eliot. “_ Honestly _? More often than not, it takes a while to get to a place where someone feels comfortable enough to share that, or to have done enough work to realize the true answer. But why someone thinks they’re here, or maybe what they think I want to hear about why they’re here, is a good starting point.”_

_Eliot’s mouth opens, and then he shuts it. This was not what he was expecting. “Are you supposed to give away trade secrets like that?”_

_“I’m not here to trick or outsmart you, Eliot. I’m just a person who has acquired knowledge of certain tools that I can possibly share with you.”_

_Hm. Sounds fake._ Crystal _is saying Eliot’s name a lot. Is that one of their_ tools _? What is it supposed to do?_

_“So, what,” Eliot says, looking away from Crystal to the nauseating print of a sailboat on the wall, soothing pastel colors. God, what is he doing? “I spin you some self-deluding bullshit and you pick through it to figure out what’s really going on?”_

_“Why do you keep assuming it’d be ‘bullshit’?”_

_“Because I fucking know myself, and that’s what I do, when asked a straightforward yet terrifying question, like ‘why are you in therapy.’”_

_Crystal is quiet for a long moment. “That’s actually an impressive amount of self-knowledge, Eliot. And that’s something very hard for people, to even recognize the existence of our defense mechanisms. We all have them, and they usually develop as survival strategies. So the fact you know the ways you might avoid vulnerability is something to embrace. Maybe that’s a starting place.”_

“I kind of gave her the runaround. Talked a lot of bullshit.”

Because Eliot might have known all about his _survival strategies_ , but he felt helpless to actually do anything to change them. Even felt some perverse need to dig in, to cling to them. Crystal might have insisted she wasn’t there to trick or outsmart him but Eliot is an asshole and felt a need to trick or outsmart her. To throw distractions in her path and see if she called him on it. _Why are you here, Eliot?_ The thing was that Eliot knows exactly, thanks to the artificial method of self-discovery that is being trapped in your own mind by god-possession. _My best friend was the love of one life and it seemed like he was down for round two but I turned him down and maybe broke his heart, and then he died, because I was possessed by a monster that..._ so Eliot found himself seizing on the Monster and throwing it at Crystal and then running, metaphorically speaking, because _I was possessed_ seems, bizarrely, the issue of his with the lowest stakes at the moment, since the actual urgent issue is _I love him, and I destroyed it, and what does that say about me_ , _and how can I fix it can I fix it do I even deserve to try_ but it just seems wrong, to tell his therapist this before he tells Quentin. He’s a coward, but at least has some fucking pride. Which is why he’s here, on the balcony. To tell Quentin. 

( _Possessed by a monster_ was a nice breaker in the flood of _I broke his heart because I think maybe my whole sorry life—my dad the alcholic batterer my shitty homophobic small town my abstracted absent beaten-down mother the bullies you sissy suck it up I’ll give you something to cry about Taylor faggot Logan Kinnear dicklicker the bus blood the drugs the alcohol the sex I can’t remember the boyfriends I stole and the boyfriend I killed and more drugs and alcohol and more sex I don’t remember the wife I didn’t want and the kingdom I failed and the dead baby—has broken me is some fundamental way, some way that in that moment and still, horribly, in a way that seems like fate or DNA or a natural law feels somehow more powerful than the golden haze of—working together side-by-side day in day out dusty warm tiles dragging against calloused palms the hum of fat bees lolling in the new grass peaches plums honey wine Eliot please kiss me Eliot yes Eliot please please Eliot that feels so good Eliot you’re so gorgeous their sweat cooling in the breeze from the open window bringing up the scent of sex on the clean sheets washed with lavender soap that Eliot had made bickering arguing occasional shouting matches tense silences makeup sex laughing swimming naked in the river in summer heat winter curled up together snow drifts apples apricots scratchy warm quilts Quentin’s cold feet behind his knees feeding Quentin soup bright red hair the smell of a baby’s head first steps first words first tooth arms reaching up the charming and infuriating stubborness of toddlers oh god he’s so small was I that small and my dad still Eliot you’re so good with him papa where does the sun go at night grave dirt tears papa I love you Quentin I’m here on and on—fifty fucking years._

Still _possessed by a monster_ is, obviously, no trump card, no easy way out. It picks things up out of the torrent, drags them along with it. _Logan Kinnear, blood, the boyfriend I killed_ —what they’d eventually settled on was that Eliot felt guilty. No fucking shit. That he needs to work on letting that go. Well, wouldn’t that be nice.

But still, he’s going back. Google says these things take time.)

“Yeah, that happens,” Quentin says. “It’s easy to go in circles around anything that actually matters. That’s if you actually even know in the first place what you should be talking about, which...”

Quentin trails off with a wry snort, a flap of his hand to indicate the sheer unlikeliness of this. The tip of his cigarette glowing hot, one more pinprick of city light. 

“I knew what mattered. What I wanted to say.” This comes out sharper than Eliot intends, around a tightness in his chest. 

Quentin drags the ashtray closer to himself and stubs out his cigarette. “Sure, yeah sorry. I don’t mean to be, like, the obnoxious therapy expert—”

“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just.” Eliot takes a deep breath. It scrapes his lungs on the way in. His hand is shaking so hard he can’t keep his cigarette steady, so he puts his out too. “I knew what I wanted to say, but I need to. I need to say it to you first.”

Eliot’s grateful for the lack of illumination, only one lamp on in the apartment living room to cast it’s light onto the balcony. He can’t see the beetling of Quentin’s brows, the inquiry in his eyes. But he can hear the rasp of his nails over his arm as he scratches at himself nervously, the rustle of his clothing as he shifts in his chair, turns more fully towards Eliot. 

“Okay,” Quentin says gently.

“And, before I start I just want—literally, my favorite thing in the world is to hear you talk, I never _ever_ want you to stop talking—so believe me when I say this goes against my every instinct but I need you to. Not speak until I’m done. Or I’ll never get it out. And I really, really need to say this.” 

_My life depends on it!_ Eliot finishes hysterically but thankfully only internally, as Quentin, sounding quite understandably nervous, says, “Um, alright.”

“So I lied. When I said I wasn’t going to therapy for you. Of course I—” Eliot wants to say _of course it was for you, it’s all for you_ —but that isn’t quite right either. “It was _because_ of you.”

Eliot’s natural instinct is always to avoid other people’s eyes when he says anything real, or honest. But he can’t help but look at Quentin, to catch his pained but understanding nod.

“No, not like you’re thinking.” Even though Quentin is going along with Eliot’s demand so far and hasn’t made a sound, he doesn’t have to, because Eliot knows him. 

Eliot has thought a lot about what to say in this moment. In his happy place, he’d imagined it a million times. The damsel-in-distress waiting to be rescued, and he pictured the scene of reunion as fittingly dramatic, helped along by circumstance and evocative setpieces, swooning into Quentin’s arms and saying the important stuff. I love you, I love you, I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. A rakish, painterly daub of blood on his cheek. Hand clasping Quentin’s to his heart. This had been another bit of kindling on the fire of his torment, his guilt. _Jesus_ , he was such an asshole, because here’s the reality: his insides becoming outsides from the hole Margo had rent in his middle and Quentin not even looking at him, because as Eliot knows from Quentin’s own guilt shared in Eliot’s bed one night several weeks ago _god Eliot you were bleeding out and I didn’t even—it was like nothing was real—_

Eliot had also tormented himself plenty. An endless reel of mockery. Quentin saying: _Eliot it’s just too late._ Quentin saying: _fuck you, Eliot, get out of my sight_. Quentin saying: _Eliot, what are you even talking about._

In this last vision Quentin was kind, gently confused, and Alice was there, holding Quentin’s hand. Eliot knows he has an impressive talent for torturing himself but he supposes it’s kind of relief to discover that even in his deep hatred of himself and his ability to kill all possibilities of his own happiness he couldn’t have dreamed up the reality, which is that Quentin had gotten back with Alice and then _died_. 

But this. A quiet and normal night, and Eliot just has to come out and say it. No cinematic backdrops, no script. A gaping chasm to traverse, between that moment of revelation and now, formed by Quentin’s loss. 

What Alice and Quentin are to each other—ambiguous. 

In the six months Quentin was dead he and Alice had worked diligently with Julia to bring Quentin back to life but while he and Julia got to the crying together stage he and Alice had mostly sat in rooms and quietly torn holes in each other, only occasionally using words. Their mutual existences were enough, really. The occasional words, though—those were worse.

_“Me and Quentin—we got back together, right before he died.”_

Flinch. 

_“But it wasn’t—Quentin wasn’t well. Julia said she told you all this. It was the least romantic proposal of all time. I can see that now. But I was just so happy he forgave me and that he wanted me in his life again. I had been so alone for so long, and it’s mostly my own fault, but still. He trusted me again. I had thought it wasn’t possible, because he had sent me away, and then I came back to Brakebills and I saw—”_

Writhe.

_“I’m telling this wrong. I don’t—I don’t know how to tell this. I don’t know how to make sense of it, to put it all together. Not when he’s dead. I came back to Brakebills and was looking for something in the library and I heard Quentin and Julia and Penny and I hid and eavesdropped because Quentin had sent me away, he never wanted to fucking see me again. They were researching how to get rid of the Monster, how to save you, and it reminded me of when I was a Niffin and how much time Quentin spent in that library trying to figure out how to bring me back even while I tormented him. I knew then that—how he felt about you.”_

Shake.

Alice’s woundings were done with strange kindness, the bewilderment of grief engendering a gentleness quite unusual to her. Certainly with more eloquence. Eliot had just been a bastard.

 _“But you make it sound like we’ve just fucking misplaced him, Alice. He_ died.” 

Wince.

_“You’re still so fucking arrogant.”_

Jerk.

_“I seem to remember you never exactly fucking thanked him for that.”_

Cringe. 

_“It sounds like from what you told Julia that Quentin didn’t need to die at all. It sounds to me like everyone could have gotten out of that room alive, if he hadn’t wanted to be a fucking martyr so badly and you hadn’t fucking obliged him.”_

Heave.

Still, he and Alice had come to an understanding, as the people Quentin had been willing to die for, as potent in it’s way as the understanding he and Julia had come to as the people who had spent lifetimes with Quentin. It just wasn’t easy, or comforting. _I know how he felt about you_ —as close to Alice’s blessing as he could expect to or indeed wanted to receive. Eliot would like to say he’d finally said “fuck it” to blessings but Julia’s _he really loved you_ and Margo’s _there’s nothing about letting Quentin know you love him that will break him_ —well, he guess he did need it to counteract all the other blessings he’d received in his life, all the _I’ll pray for you_ ’s.

“Eliot—”

Lost in his reverie, Eliot had been letting the lights of the city blur before his eyes and then come back into focus until his eyes burned. He snaps his head back around to Quentin.

“Quentin, you promised. No talking.” 

“Right, well, you’ve just been quiet for like, a really long time…” Quentin appeases, but his response to Eliot’s quelling glare is to turn mulish with a mutter of, “I didn’t actually _promise_.”

Eliot’s lip twitches, charmed, done for, totally fucking gone, and catches a flash of Quentin’s teeth as he smiles in reply. Eliot, at the moment, is fighting the urge to cry, vomit, throw himself off the balcony, leave the penthouse, New York City, the state, the Eastern seaboard, the country, the continent, change his name, fake his own death, _anything_ but to avoid the terror that is telling Quentin Coldwater that he’s hopelessly in love with him, and still, Quentin can make him smile, can make Eliot’s desiccated heart throb with the ache of the ill-used muscle waking up and getting ready to do what’s asked of it. 

“Okay, well, I’m going to need you to promise.”

It’s a bind: once Eliot gets going he’s really going to need Quentin to keep that vow. But look at what just happened, Eliot caught in that riptide of all the shit that swirls around them, getting pulled under every time. But Quentin’s voice the rope pulling him back to what really matters, the quiet miracle of himself, here alive sitting in the dark waiting patiently to listen to whatever Eliot has to say. 

“I promise.” 

“Okay,” Eliot says, nodding to himself. Lighting another cigarette to prove to himself he can hold it steady. “Okay. So. When I was possessed by the monster.”

Quentin’s breathes deep, goes still. 

“You okay?” Eliot asks, quietly. He doesn’t actually expect Quentin to stay silent in response to a direct inquiry, but Quentin Coldwater keeps his promises. Eliot gives a shaky breath when Quentin reaches across to where Eliot’s free hand taps nervously against the glass-topped table and just slides his first two fingers over Eliot’s wrist. Rubbing gently in assent, in assurance. Okay. 

“When I was possessed by the monster, I was trapped in my own mind. I didn’t see anything that was going on in the real world. None of the shit he was doing, none of the stuff he was putting you through. I was having the time of my life. I was in the physical kids cottage with Margo, getting high, replaying our greatest party hosting hits. Until Charlton showed up.” 

Quentin’s mouth opens, but _and who the hell is Charlton?_ doesn’t follow. Eliot rewards him with a smile. Wonders if Quentin can feel the sudden pick up in Eliot’s already galloping pulse when their fingers brush as Eliot passes him the cigarette, Jesus, he has to get a hold of himself. 

“Charlton was another victim of the monster. He was, uh, the previous host. The one I shot in Blackspire. I did apologize for that. No hard feelings. Really nice fucking guy.” Eliot’s chest hurts. A cloud of smoke billows towards him on Quentin’s tremulous exhale. 

“So it wasn’t his first rodeo. Before he showed up I hadn’t even realized none of it was real, that it was all in my head. Or I kind of did realize, but I was in deep denial. Repressing like a champ. That will be kind of relevant, later. Just, FYI. If you’re keeping notes. Jot...that...down.” 

Eliot sounds totally fucking deranged already. Not great! 

“Anyway. He caught me up to speed. Possessed by ancient evil being, must somehow find a way to break through and take control of my body to let my friends know I’m alive, etc. I just had to trawl through my worst memories, and in the very very worst I would find a door back to my body. So, that was the agenda.”

“Jesus,” Quentin says, under his breath.

Overcome by absurdity, Eliot snaps his fingers and points at Quentin, says in tones of barely contained hysteria: “I’ll allow it. If you give me that cigarette. Because. Yeah.” 

Eliot could light another one but he wants this, the fortifying slantwise eroticism of feeling the end of a cigarette filter damp from Quentin’s lip, as Eliot takes two deep drags to finish it off. 

Quentin actually raises his hand. “Can I say one more thing?” 

“Hm. I will allow…”—dramatic pause as Eliot considers—“...three interjections. Use them wisely.”

“I’ll wait then.” 

God, why did Eliot have so much _fun_ with Quentin, always, even amidst, you know, the flop sweat of dread thing Eliot is experiencing right now. Quentin was not—Eliot must admit when forcing himself to be objective about Quentin, which he knows is not the _easiest_ thing for him—the _funnest_ person around. Not _unfun_ , like the tasteless and undiscerning might jump to assert. But, you know. Parties weren’t where he shone. But with Eliot, maybe. Maybe he did. He shines _for_ Eliot, anyway, almost too bright to look at. 

“Good. We’ve gotten off topic. Where were we? Right. I had to journey through all my worst memories.” Eliot can feel the smile slowly slide off his face. He looks away again. “And, you might have caught on to this, gotten just an inkling, ha, but—I have _a lot_ of shit, Q. So the greatest hits were pretty grim. But the worst. The worst memory of my life was that moment after we—the mosaic. After we remembered the mosaic. When you looked at me and asked me to give us a shot and I turned you down. That was the worst. That was the moment that the door appeared and I was able to take control of my body—”

All this time Eliot has been pushing forward against the hindering force of Quentin’s sudden, eloquent stillness. Brazening it out, rushing to get it out ahead of whatever’s coming. The same old problem, the ever-present anticipation of the blow.

“The park,” Quentin says almost too quietly to hear. “You broke through, you let me know you were alive.”

“Yes,” Eliot says. 

Quentin doesn’t say anything further. So. He has to do this last bit and then at least he can in good conscience leave the ball in Quentin’s corner. What does that metaphor even _mean_ anyway he doesn't know anything about sports, fuck, this is the very stupid thing he’s thinking right before he says in a dizzy rush: “Quentin, I love you. I’m in love with you. I lied, when I said it’s not what we would choose when we had a choice. I don’t know if it’s still your choice but it’s my choice. I choose you every time. I love you. I’m so fucking sorry that I hurt you, I don’t know if you want this anymore but I know I hurt you then and I never, ever want to hurt you and I’m sorry and did mention I love you.”

Eliot’s eyes are burning. He thinks he might be about to cry. He’s panting a little. Only a lack of oxygen is preventing him from just saying it over and over again _I love you I’m sorry I love you_. But being forced to take in several shuddering gasps of air slows him down, stops him entirely. Forces him to tune in to the obstructing weight of Quentin’s taut silence. It goes on, and on. 

And on.

“Um. Can you please say something?” Eliot manages to choke out. Steals a glance at Quentin, who isn’t looking at Eliot.

“This is interjection number two, correct?”

What the fuck? But Eliot just nods, frantically. “Yeah, sure.”

“You lied?”

“Yeah,” Eliot says, relieved. He can talk about he fucked up some more, sure, whatever. “I was scared. Of what you were offering me. Because I knew I would fuck it up. So I ran, because if I just destroyed it first, on purpose, that was safer. Because I’m kind of a huge coward.” 

“Wow, that’s pretty fucked up.” 

Quentin’s voice intonation-less, level, cool. Eliot feels—he doesn’t know. A slow, creeping numbness. He looks out at the endless lights of Manhattan, focuses on the city noises, traffic going by, tries to sink into it and lose awareness of where he is. Float away.

Then, very softly, Quentin says: “Eliot.”

Eliot couldn’t tell you what tone of voice Quentin says that in, because it contains so _much_. It’s like no one has ever said Eliot’s name before this moment. Quentin is saying his name with every single thing in it and it is a command that Eliot can not resist. A call that Eliot must answer. Eliot looks at Quentin.

“So I think is interjection three.” Quentin’s eyes, god. God.

“I think you’re better at math than that,” Eliot says. His eyes are burning again, but he blinks away the salty film covering them to better see Quentin. Quentin. Quentin. “But luckily I am terrible at math, and also of a merciful nature.” 

“Luckily,” Quentin says drily. “Because, well. This is the most important one. And let’s say it’s the third. That’s satisfying. Because you know, things that come in threes are very significant. In myths. And folklore.”

“Ah. Of course. Myth. And folklore.” Eliot is leaning forward. Looking and looking at Quentin alive for Eliot to look at, the great miracle of Eliot’s life that is Quentin looking back at him. “So what is it? The third thing.”

Quentin’s grin is huge, big as a planet a sun a universe, as he says, “Eliot. You idiot. Can I _please_ kiss you?”

Eliot responds by fisting the front of Quentin’s hoodie and hauling him forward into his lap and kissing him and kissing him and kissing him. Quentin gasps into Eliot’s mouth. Eliot strokes his hair, the back of neck, pulls back to kiss his trembling eyelids with their wet eyelashes his dear grumpy brow with his articulate funny eyebrows his cute nose his devastating dimples his perfect silly ears the fine flyaway wisps of hair at his hairline. 

Quentin is gasping, “I love you, I love you so much, of course I choose you,” against Eliot’s face, clinging to Eliot’s shirt-front with both hands. He’s laughing, dragging his mouth up Eliot’s cheek in a clumsy ardent kiss. Eliot’s chest is going to burst. His smile hurts, it's so big. He is definitely crying. 

“I thought I’d have to grovel more. I thought you’d be mad.” Eliot admits, stunned, unthinking, incapable of letting the moment just exist.

“Oh, no, I’m incredibly pissed at you,” Quentin says on another laugh. He sounds cheerful about it, though. “Groveling is not uncalled for.”

His face goes serious, and he pulls back from Eliot to look searchingly into his eyes. He cups Eliot’s face in his hands. “But, Eliot? I’m so good with that. As long as you’re mine to be mad at.” 

Eliot laughs, chest easing, smile blooming even wider, somehow. “I absolutely fucking am, baby.”

They kiss some more. They kiss until late turns into early. There’s still _so much shit._ But. But. Eliot is Quentin’s.

Much later and Quentin is still curled up in Eliot’s lap, head tucked up under Eliot’s chin. Eliot’s nose is buried in Quentin’s hair, which smells of Julia’s shampoo. His hand is starfished over Eliot’s chest. Eliot traces the knobs of Quentin’s spine.

“I have like, a couple of comments, though. Questions, really,” Quentin mumbles into Eliot’s neck. It’s not dawn quite yet, but Eliot doesn’t think he’s imagining the gray around the edges of the sky.

“Why not go ahead and get concerns out of the way?” Eliot ventures with a confidence he does not feel. Quentin’s laugh moves the hand Eliot has spread wide against his back, up and down, up and down. Then he’s quiet for a minute.

“What changed? I mean, you said you were scared, so you ran. What’s different now? Also you opened this saying that you were going to therapy _because_ of me, but that was never really addressed.”

“Sorry I didn’t answer every one of the questions in the essay,” Eliot says, laughing.

Eliot feels Quentin’s smile against his neck, punctuated by a kiss at his jaw. “Your heartfelt confession of love still gets an A+ from me.”

“Believe it or not, that’s a first for me.” _Without involving the exchange of sexual favors,_ Eliot doesn’t say. Because well, a part of him still thinks that’s not strictly true, but he’ll try to work on the part of himself that thinks Quentin only stayed around for decades because Eliot might be able to delude himself on a lot of things but his ability to fucking _blow Quentin’s mind_ had not been one of them. 

Then Eliot sighs. 

“Well, fortunately, the answer to those two questions is kind of the same. I mean, the easy answer to both of them is that—you were dead, and it brought what really matters into pretty sharp fucking relief. So. You were dead and all I could think about while Julia told me how hard you worked to save me was that—that meant something. That it would disrespect you to try to pretend it didn’t. All I could think about was that you died and you died maybe thinking that I—”

Eliot’s voice cracks. Quentin says, “El, hey—” and Eliot cuts him off with a squeeze, a kiss to the forehead. 

“No it’s—so that’s why. I’d gotten a second chance, and I couldn’t waste it. That’s why I told you. Even though I don’t know exactly where things stand with you and Alice right now—”

“Uh, El. We’re—I’m in your lap right now. Obviously me and Alice are broken up.” There’s an unfortunately familiar strain of _what the fuck even is his deal_ in his voice, but he’s also laughing a little bit.

“Yeah, of course. Obviously. Alice and I have—well. Yes. Obviously. But I don’t know if it was just like, you were taking a break…”

Quentin does pull back at this so Eliot gets to see his like, criminally cute angry little gopher look. “Eliot. Do you seriously think I’ve just—all of _this_ , I _love_ you, and it’s just what, I’m just entertaining myself until me and Alice work it out?”

Hearing the words in Quentin’s mouth is like a gut-punch, even said in tones of disbelief working itself up to offended outrage.

“Haha, no! No. Obviously not.” Not consciously, anyway. 

They look at each other for a long moment. Eliot gulps. Quentin sighs.

“There’s, um. A lot to unpack there. It’s a lot for. Right now. So let’s just table it for the moment, yeah?” Quentin traces his finger down the slope of Eliot’s nose. Puts his thumb right in the dimple in Eliot’s chin that Eliot has always hated, and in that moment it becomes Eliot’s absolute favorite part of his own face. 

“Fantastic,” Eliot says. “Absolutely.” 

“Okay, go on.” 

Right. Unfortunately Eliot does actually still have more to say. He picks up Quentin’s thumb and kisses it.

“Alright. And even though I know you’re pretty overwhelmed right now and everything is still kind of a nightmare and I worried I would be fucking you up, somehow. I want to be clear on the fact that I don’t expect us to just like, date...”

“That’s kind of what Alice said when she broke up with me,” Quentin says in a soft hurt voice.

“Oh?” Eliot just kind of knew it happened, but not the details. It’s good they’re tabling it right now. There’s a lot there, dark and deep and swift and ready to knock his legs out from under him. But Quentin has something he wants to say, and Eliot meant it—Quentin can talk to him about anything.

“Well, that’s at least the excuse she gave. I mean I was sort of catatonic for the first bit and I remember waking up and her informing me that she’d already essentially broken up with me while trying to bring me back from the dead and now was basically just taking the time to get me up to speed. Which was good, because it saved me from having to break up with her, which I wasn’t in any place to do. Because I wasn’t—I wasn’t in any place to get back together with her in the first place, because. Anyway. There’s a lot, uh, to unpack. There. Like I said. But yeah, her reasoning was, you know you’re too much of a disaster to date, maybe when you resemble a human being again…”

Eliot cuts Quentin off with a kiss to the cheek. “Baby,” he says. It shouldn’t be possible, how good it makes Eliot feel to say it. “I’m sure that’s not what she meant.” 

Quentin shrugs, shoulders hunched and tense, mouth tight. “Yeah. That’s generally a problem, with me and Alice. That’s not the point right this second. It’s just, she’s not wrong. I’m a mess, dating me is, it’s kind of an undertaking right now but it’s also like, when is it ever not, I know now is especially bad but if, if you’re waiting for a time when I’m like, perfectly ready to date or whatever, by the standards of, I don’t even know what the standards are and who set them I just know I probably will never reach them, so. Anyway. You might be waiting. For a while.”

Eliot thinks he can now discern the outline of Quentin’s anxiety. 

“No waiting. I think you’re perfect to date. I want to date you, like, so bad,” Eliot says, tucking Quentin’s hair behind his ear, getting a small smile that makes Eliot’s heart fucking seize, this is _absurd_. “Right now. Just like you are. All I'm saying is that I know we’ve both been through a lot. I want us both to be able to set the pace.”

“Okay,” Quentin says, not totally convinced but willing to be pacified for now.

“Like, tomorrow morning I’m going to call Margo up by mirror-phone and make her vomit by telling her I have a boyfriend.” Well, maybe. He’ll definitely call her once he has something to tell her that she wants to hear about i.e. when they fuck which, again, Eliot is not worrying about. He knows it’ll happen, even if it looks like it won't be happening tonight.

“Good,” Quentin says. Sounding giddy. “On that topic. I’m glad you got used to Julia while…”

“We did grief-bond, yes.”

“Because she’s pretty insufferable. When it comes to this.”

“Can’t wait.” Eliot means it totally. He’s totally terrified about not living up to what are apparently Julia’s deeply in character high standards for Quentin’s significant others and he’s fucking ecstatic about it. 

Quentin smiles at him again, the last bit of tension bleeding away. “Okay, sorry. I got us off track. We were talking about you.”

Right. Terrible.

“Right. So that’s why I had to tell you. As for the therapy...I fucked it up so badly with you, thanks to all my shit, which my little mind palace timeout helpfully highlighted for me. And I can’t risk that again. Kind of doubtful that therapy can help, but…”

Eliot hates the falsity in the self-deprecating laugh that he trails off into at the end of this. It’s better than his natural follow up, about his fear that nothing ever could. It doesn’t need to be repeated, not right now. 

There’s an odd, determined look on Quentin’s face. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, El. When I said it was fucked up, before, I was responding to you calling yourself a coward. That’s not true. Not from where I’m standing.”

“Well, you’re pretty short, so,” Eliot teases weakly. Throat aching. Quentin rolls his eyes.

“I can see you just fine,” Quentin whispers. Eliot feels skinless, and grateful for it.

Quentin goes on: 

“But, you don’t have to do it because of me, okay? I’m not scared of you fucking up. Proof of concept. I think—I think that wasn’t the best way to sell you on it, probably. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it too, and I do know you, so. But I fucking meant it and—okay, stop that,” Quentin says in response to Eliot slowly shaking his head. Staggered, every time, by Quentin’s bravery and generosity. Frustrated with himself, because there’s something he needs to say, that’s he’s been circling around this entire time but can’t quite touch. 

“Q.” And Quentin stills. Quentin looks. A command, tucked into that syllable. An infinity, for Quentin to hear in it. “When I said it was _because_ of you I didn’t mean—yes, I don’t want to fuck it up. I want to be worthy of you and there’s some part of me that believes I’m fucking poison to everyone I love. Don’t interrupt,” Eliot says, tapping Quentin on the nose. “The ‘Quentin can’t speak’ rule is back in force, alright?” 

Quentin nods but with another roll of his eyes that suggests that he’s going to be a lot less biddable going forward. Then there’s another long pause as Eliot tries to gather his scattered thoughts together. Quentin’s warm sleepy acquiescent weight in his lap is both a potent distraction and the thing that redoubles his determination to get this out. 

“So. I’m poison. Because that’s what my life has taught me. I got the highlights reel of all those lessons, getting back to you. My worst memories were all the ways I’ve hurt and failed everyone who ever cared about me or stupidly trusted me. And then I got to the moment when I let all the times I’d fucked up before fuck everything up for me again, by fucking _breaking your heart_ , which is just unacceptable. And the memory of doing that is just more _evidence_. Against me. The worst evidence, because it’s _you_. It should have been enough that when I broke through that door I told you to run away far and fast. But I—you remember. That’s not what I did.”

“No,” Quentin says. “It sure isn’t.”

“That’s the thing, that’s why when I say I’m in therapy it’s because of you, because at that moment, when I was offered the final, ultimate evidence about what an irredeemable shit I am, all I could see,” and Eliot has to stop for a moment to try to regain control, “was that you _loved_ me. That’s what scared me so much the first time, so much that this was the worst fucking memory of my life. That afterwards I had to dig as deep as my really world-class repression talents could go to bury it, because I couldn't carry it and fucking _live_. That you loved me, and I’d thrown it away. But this time, I saw that you loved me, and I _believed_ it.” 

Eliot is finally, full-on fucking bawling. God, this is awful. 

As Quentin says, “Hey, El, hey. Sweetheart,” Eliot just kind of folds forward and tucks his face into Quentin’s chest. Anchors himself with the steady thud of Quentin’s heart and his smell and soft material of his hoodie, Quentin’s hand stroking through his hair. He has to contort his spine. It’s hell on his back. 

It’s still not quite what Eliot wanted to say, but well, he thinks he can truly say he did his best. Because how to say _this_ , how to sum it up in words:

This was one realization the escape from his happy place had given Eliot. That there are moments that coalesce everything around them. The sound of his foot meeting Taylor’s ribs with one final dull thud or the metallic screech of rubber grinding soft human matter into pavement are both themselves and refractions of every taunt and blow and curse bringing every suspicion Eliot has of his own innate worthlessness screaming to the surface, baring the horrible squirming disgusting fundamental flaw that renders him unlovable and toxic to harsh unforgiving light. That moment, turning Quentin down. The moment that drew in all those other moments, devoured them, compacted them into something small and hard and deadly, a bullet he could aim directly at whatever hope might still dare to exist and kill it dead. 

To then have that moment where he replayed the scene of his rejection in his own mind, where by some extraordinary miracle not only did someone as good and true as Quentin love him, Eliot thought _someone good and true loves you_ and believed it enough to say it aloud even and especially in the hostile atmosphere of his own mind—what does it bring around it, what gathers to it? The feel of creamy fine paper against Eliot’s fingers as a boy stumbles through a hedge and walks towards Eliot across a green lawn drenched in golden light. The burn of that cigarette as for some reason he couldn’t even identify to himself he told a boy he’d known for a handful of days his most shameful thing, and watched him not only not turn away in disgust, but sit down beside him. Cool metal against his brow, as Quentin sets a crown on his head and makes him a king not with the crown itself but with the transforming gift of his belief. Not much. Not anything at all, really, if you discount a life that never was, which Eliot insists on out of a perverse sense of fair play. And yet. Enough. Enough to in that moment not take that unlived life as certainty but to glimpse it as possibility and to see himself as worthy of that possibility and besides fuck certainty, fuck worthiness, fuck me, _Quentin_ is waiting, and to open that door and walk right out of the labyrinth of his own idiot skull.

He can’t put that into words, but he finds himself blubbering an approximation of it into Quentin’s chest. “I love you so much and you make me so happy and I want to make you happy and that’s why I told you I loved you tonight and that’s why I’m in therapy.”

They curl up in Eliot’s bed. They sleep till three in the afternoon.

The next week, Eliot returns to therapy. Sits down on Crystal’s couch. Begins. 

“So. I’m in love.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I once again come bearing a fic made of plotless vignettes! Whatever, know your strengths. This slots into my other [post-s4 fic of plotless vignettes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20236018/chapters/47958451) but that's absolutely not required reading. Title is from the Laura Stevenson song, which is extremely romantic and extremely Queliot. Summary is from slash fandom poet laureate Richard Siken's [Snow and Dirty Rain](http://poeticfuck.blogspot.com/2008/06/siken-snow-and-dirty-rain.html), with thanks to the twitter everyone who wants to feel feelings about Eliot Waugh and also about tumblr circa 2011 should follow, the Richard Siken bot (@sikenpoems), and also to Gillian.
> 
> I am on tumblr [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22805353/chapters/54499456).


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